Green Turtles

Cursed with succulent meat, green sea turtles have suffered an enormous decline since Europeans arrived in the Americas. Sailors stacked them on their backs on ships, keeping them alive as a steady source of food during long voyages. Beginning in the 19th century, commercial fisherman sent thousands of them to Europe for soup. Early settlers walked the beaches to dig up their eggs. The federal government declared green turtles an endangered species 27 years ago, imposing protection measures.

With a front left flipper dangling uselessly after a predator attack, it looked like Flippy didn't have much of a chance of surviving, much less getting back into the wild when she was found on a Boca Raton beach three months ago. Ryan Butts, sea turtle rehabilitator at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, said that he's never seen a turtle do any better than lose the limb after having 75 percent of a flipper torn off as Flippy's was. Miraculously, though,...

A huge leatherback turtle crawled ashore Tuesday afternoon in Pompano Beach, where a crowd of onlookers with cameras and smart phones apparently scared it off the beach before it could lay eggs. The female turtle, estimated at 400 pounds, made an attempt at digging a nest but turned around and used its flippers to crawl awkwardly back to the water as a crowd of about 100 people watched and took pictures. “It was probably because there were a lot of people,” said Dawn Formica, of the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program, who was at the scene.

Beachgoers in Delray could soon see changes that are aimed at making the stretch of sand safer for sea turtles. Hundreds of sea turtles call Delray's shore home during nesting season and Delray officials are aiming to beef up ways to protect them. But beefing up the city's rules isn't a simple task - and everyone along the beach will need to pitch in. "Anything you see from the beach is going to be affected," said Lula Butler, director of Delray's Community Improvement Department.

Beachgoers in Delray could soon see changes that are aimed at making the stretch of sand safer for sea turtles. Hundreds of sea turtles call Delray's shore home during nesting season and Delray officials are aiming to beef up ways to protect them. But beefing up the city's rules isn't a simple task - and everyone along the beach will need to pitch in. "Anything you see from the beach is going to be affected," said Lula Butler, director of Delray's Community Improvement Department.

A dead green sea turtle with a plastic trash bag twisted around its left flipper washed ashore in Delray Beach on Tuesday, state biologists said. Biologists are not sure what killed the turtle, but they said the plastic could have hindered it from eating. The sea turtles, an endangered species, have also died or become ill from ingesting plastic, which they mistake for food. The turtle was found about three-quarters of a mile north of Atlantic Avenue and is the 29th stranded sea turtle reported in Palm Beach County so far this year, the state Department of Environmental Protection said.

This weekend finds the ward is fuller than ever at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, which re-opened its turtle rehab last August. Four young green turtles —Viper, Vixen, Fast Track and Artie — arrived in Boca Raton last week from Indian River and Brevard counties. Viper, who has lived just four years of the 150 or so he could, took a particularly nasty propeller hit that turtle rehabilitation coordinator Ryan Butts said is the worst injury he's ever seen a turtle survive. "He took a propeller strike right down his spine," Butts said.

The sea turtles that make landfall, visiting city beaches after dark to lay their eggs, command a lot of attention this time of year. But on the opposite side of State Road A1A, below the surface of the Intracoastal Waterway, swim other sea turtles less visible to the general public and marine conservation officials. Those green turtles, an endangered species, inhabit a bulge of the Intracoastal called Lake Wyman, said Steve Bass, manager of the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. Sightings made by various people over the years show green turtles regularly visit that area along with another endangered species of sea turtle, the hawksbill, he said.

The number of manatee deaths in Florida broke a record this week, with 769 dying so far, largely from toxic algae blooms. The bad news for manatees came the same day the state announced good news for sea turtles, with record numbers of endangered green turtles laying eggs on Florida beaches. Among the major causes of the manatee deaths were a toxic red tide bloom off Lee County, which killed 276 of the endangered marine mammals, and toxic algae blooms off Brevard County which claimed more than 100, according to the Save the Manatee Club, which announced the record deaths Wednesday.

The tide is barely visible in the puny light sent down by stars and reflecting clouds. Its sound is deep and constant, echoing off the dune, but it brings something inescapably calm. The female loggerhead turtle lumbers out of the water, scooting with flippers, until she finds the right spot, digs her nest and lays her eggs. She covers the eggs with wet sand and returns to the water, leaving tractor-type tracks, never to see her babies again. This ritual has been going on since the dinosaurs roamed.

The number of manatee deaths in Florida broke a record this week, with 769 dying so far, largely from toxic algae blooms. The bad news for manatees came the same day the state announced good news for sea turtles, with record numbers of endangered green turtles laying eggs on Florida beaches. Among the major causes of the manatee deaths were a toxic red tide bloom off Lee County, which killed 276 of the endangered marine mammals, and toxic algae blooms off Brevard County which claimed more than 100, according to the Save the Manatee Club, which announced the record deaths Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — In one of nature's best comeback stories, endangered green sea turtles have multiplied in Florida during the past two decades and are now thriving in protected waters from Melbourne to the Florida Keys, marine scientists have discovered. Intense conservation efforts have helped these 300-pound vegetarians flourish, with females laying hundreds of eggs along Florida's east and southwest coasts and returning every two or three years to the exact same spot to nest again.

This weekend finds the ward is fuller than ever at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, which re-opened its turtle rehab last August. Four young green turtles —Viper, Vixen, Fast Track and Artie — arrived in Boca Raton last week from Indian River and Brevard counties. Viper, who has lived just four years of the 150 or so he could, took a particularly nasty propeller hit that turtle rehabilitation coordinator Ryan Butts said is the worst injury he's ever seen a turtle survive. "He took a propeller strike right down his spine," Butts said.

Touching beach and ocean waves for the first time in 81 days Thursday, the patient seemed to recoil from the water when the first swell hit her, inching west instead of east. The crowd gathered for the send-off for the juvenile green turtle at Spanish River Park paused from its collective "goodbyes" and fell silent. Soluna, after all, was facing the wild with one less flipper than the last time she was here, before she was nursed back to health at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center.

Cindy the loggerhead lost a flipper to a shark and wasn't expected to live. But now she's the star of the sea turtle rehab at the city's Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, reopening to the public on Friday. "She had shark bites everywhere and her left flipper was bitten off and there were nibbles on her back flippers and her head," said Ryan Butts, newly hired sea turtle rehabilitation coordinator. "She was in terrible condition. " Cindy is recovering from her ordeal in the rehab, closed since August 2010 to modify the filtration system and update the area, with large round tubs under roof and square ones outside for sunning.

A huge increase in sea turtle nesting has taken place along the beaches of Palm Beach County this year, for reasons that are not well understood. Leatherback turtles, giants that routinely grow to more than 1,000 pounds, have made 173 nests since nesting season began in March, compared to 108 for the same period last year, on beaches monitored by the county. “If the trend continues, we're looking at a record year,” said Paul Davis, the county's sea turtle coordinator. Loggerhead turtles, which tend to weigh 300 pounds or so, have made 536 nests, compared to 64 last year.

They spend part of their adolescence below the sheltered, less-rippled waters of the Lake Worth Lagoon, where they put on weight and stay off the dinner menu of local sharks. That population of juvenile and sub-adult green sea turtles is now the target of a Palm Beach County study that hopes to use turtle observations to gauge whether water quality is improving in the lagoon. The work also might provide some insight into an unexplained aspect of sea turtle health, biologists said. Only 25 percent of the sea turtles found dead or stranded in the Lake Worth Lagoon, which extends from Boynton Beach to Jupiter, have harmful, lobe-shaped external tumors called fibropapilloma, compared to a 50 percent rate in the Indian River Lagoon, and scientists would like to know why, said Carly de Maye, a county environmental analyst.

BOCA RATON The turtle rehabilitation center at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is powering up to full strength - and the public can now take a peek. The nature center has opened its facilities so visitors can come nose-to-nose with some of the patients, like loggerhead Cindy, whose recovery from last month's shark attack is exceeding all expectations, or Lexi, who swallowed a fish hook and may need surgery. Visitors will see something of the ocean's struggles in the plight of these amphibious reptiles, nature center volunteers and officials hope.

It wasn't a tropical storm yet, so 100 baby turtle hatchlings got a proper Boca Raton sendoff in the surf. At 9:30 p.m., a caravan of cars followed a white city van from Gumbo Nature Center on A1A across the street to Red Reef Park. A small group high-tailed it in the dark to the edge of the ocean, and the contents of three pails of tiny turtles were emptied in the sand. Another flotilla of sea turtle hatchlings had made its way out to sea. The center's hatchling release program is sold out for the season, a testament to how many people want to watch this annual pilgrimage.